I had now been on this island more then ten months, and there seemed to be no hope of rescue. Now that I had finished my house, and made it safe place to live, I wanted to discover more about the island.
- The next day I went up the same way again, and after going on for a while, I reached the end of the fields. Many more trees were growing there, and in this part I found many fruits. There were melons on tge ground and grapes upon the trees, ripe and juicy. I decided to dry some grapes in the sun and keep them____they would be nice to eat when there were no fresh grapes around.
- I gathered great heaps of limes and lemons, and taking a few of each with me I travelled home, meaning to come again and bring a sack to carry the rest.
- This journey took me three days. The next day I went back. I gathered a large quantity of the grapes, and hung them up on branches of trees, so that they might dry in the sun. I had made two small bags, and I carried back with me as many limes and lemons as I could.
An island or isle is any piece of subcontinental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm.
- When I came from his journey, I thought about the valley. It was full of fruit and well sheltered from storms. It seemed that the place I had chosen for my home was in the worst part of the island. I thought of moving my home and of looking for somewhere to live in the valley.
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An island or isle is any piece of subcontinental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm.
The islands that rise from the floors of the ocean basins are volcanic. Lava accumulates to enormous thickness until it finally protrudes above the ocean surface. The piles of lava that form Hawaii rise as high as 32,000 feet (9,700 metres) above the ocean floor.
Island life exhibits features of special interest. The sea is a barrier to some forms of life but acts as a carrier of others, which, once established in their new home, frequently develop new features in their isolated surroundings. A long-established sea barrier results in marked differences between the animal life and vegetation even of adjacent islands, and from these differences may be deduced the origin of an island. Further, any detailed map of the biological regions of the globe illustrates the importance of islands in the determination of the boundaries of animal-life and vegetational types. For example, to the west of a line (Wallace’s Line) running between Bali and Lombok and between Borneo and Celebes, the islands are biologically Asian, but to the east of the line, notwithstanding the narrowness of the Lombok Strait, the vegetation and animal life are Australian. Oceanic islands are usually colonized by only a few animal forms, chiefly seabirds and insects. They are often covered with abundant vegetation, the seeds of which have been carried there, for example, by air and water currents or by birds; but the plant variety is relatively limited.
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Island, any area of land smaller than a continent and entirely surrounded by water. Islands may occur in oceans, seas, lakes, or rivers. A group of islands is called an archipelago.
island in Lake Ann, Washington
island in Lake Ann, Washington
An island within Lake Ann in North Cascades National Park, Washington, U.S. Islands are areas of land smaller than a continent and entirely surrounded by water.
Astudillo/U.S. National Park Service
Island
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RELATED TOPICS
Ocean
Coral island
Island arc
Cay
Archipelagic apron
Chinampa
Continental island
Oceanic island
Terra caÃda
Islands may be classified as either continental or oceanic. Oceanic islands are those that rise to the surface from the floors of the ocean basins. Continental islands are simply unsubmerged parts of the continental shelf that are entirely surrounded by water. Many of the larger islands of the world are of the continental type. Greenland (840,000 square miles [2,175,000 square km]), the largest island, is composed of the same materials as the adjacent North American continent, from which it is separated by a shallow and narrow sea. Likewise the world’s second largest island, New Guinea (309,000 square miles [800,000 square km]), is part of the Australian continental platform and is separated from it only by the very shallow and narrow Torres Strait. A slight warping of the sea bottom in the vicinity of Torres Strait would be sufficient to join New Guinea to Australia; conversely, a slight rise in sea level may submerge a hilly coast and leave the hilltops remaining as small islands just offshore (such as those off the coast near Boston and the islands off the Maine coast).
Island, New Caledonia.
BRITANNICA QUIZ
Another Quiz About Islands
Which of these islands is known as the Isle of Pearls?
volcanic island chain
volcanic island chain
A computer visualization of the process by which volcanic island chains are formed. Great plumes of super-hot rock, flowing upward from Earth's mantle, have created Hawaii, Samoa, and similar islands.
Displayed by permission of The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
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The islands that rise from the floors of the ocean basins are volcanic. Lava accumulates to enormous thickness until it finally protrudes above the ocean surface. The piles of lava that form Hawaii rise as high as 32,000 feet (9,700 metres) above the ocean floor.
Island life exhibits features of special interest. The sea is a barrier to some forms of life but acts as a carrier of others, which, once established in their new home, frequently develop new features in their isolated surroundings. A long-established sea barrier results in marked differences between the animal life and vegetation even of adjacent islands, and from these differences may be deduced the origin of an island. Further, any detailed map of the biological regions of the globe illustrates the importance of islands in the determination of the boundaries of animal-life and vegetational types. For example, to the west of a line (Wallace’s Line) running between Bali and Lombok and between Borneo and Celebes, the islands are biologically Asian, but to the east of the line, notwithstanding the narrowness of the Lombok Strait, the vegetation and animal life are Australian. Oceanic islands are usually colonized by only a few animal forms, chiefly seabirds and insects. They are often covered with abundant vegetation, the seeds of which have been carried there, for example, by air and water currents or by birds; but the plant variety is relatively limited.
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A list of the world’s largest islands is provided in the table.
Largest islands of the world
name location area*
sq mi sq km
*Area given may include small adjoining islands. Conversions for rounded figures are rounded to the nearest hundred.
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